Tuesday, October 28, 2014

In the postAmerican Commonwealth, where I write the laws as Consul, there is extremely limited due process for foreigners who cannot provide proof of legal entry and residence.

First offense, electroshock corporal punishment followed by expulsion, with signing of a document describing penalties for future offenses. Second offense, corporal punishment followed by hard labor, followed by expulsion and document signing describing third offense penalty. Third offense, summary execution.

And for any illegal foreigner who commits a crime in the Commonwealth, capital punishment.

Mark Driscoll, famous and recently fallen evangelical rock star, is a Calvinist. Clearly.
He has fallen not for sexual behavior or stealing, but for being domineering. And occasionally crude.

“We concluded that Pastor Mark has, at times, been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner. While we believe Mark needs to continue to address these areas in his life, we do not believe him to be disqualified from pastoral ministry.

Too much testosterone for the little Christians of Seattle.

I wonder how Driscoll's style of leadership would stack up next to Calvin's and Knox's.

Or would both of them likewise be kicked out by their sensitive elderboys?

Monday, October 27, 2014

The Guardian, Britain's knee-jerk leftist paper, has printed this surprisingly transgressive re-reading of the death of Matthew Shepard.

Like most saints, especially secular progressive ones, and especially "martyrs", once you are canonized you are set is sacred amber. The Matthew Shepard Foundation's reaction to the info in the book is classic: My mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts.

As Jack Donovan brilliantly pointed out in Androphilia, the pre-packaged gay identity is an amalgam of left-wing politics, feminist man-resentment and, as exhibited here, eternal victimism.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Since I parted ways with Catholicism, I have yet retained a great admiration for it for, among other things, being a bulwark of Western Civilization.

With each passing week, my admiration shrinks.

My dislike of Francis The Talking Pope is not new. As with my dislike of Barry Hussein O, it was quick of onset. Nothing either of them have turned out to be has made me reconsider my attitude.

You have to look twice to see how many fingers he has up.

As far as immigration, crime, redistributing wealth and big government, the so-called 'Justice and Peace' issues, Catholicism is a loss. Indeed, an enemy to the West that it once helped build. Frank's recent equivalizing the death penalty and life imprisonment, though pathetic, is not surprising. The real impetus behind all these moves is that no one should be punished...(unless maybe they are a corrupt capitalist.) Retributive justice should be canned entirely, in favor of what nuns like, restorative justice.

But at least Rome is clear that men and women are not interchangeable and it stood, on paper at least, against the contraceptive mind that is part of what's emptying the world of Whites.

Now it seems that His Hipness wants to impress all the aging cool kids at the NYT and their younger clones at HuffPo by giving in entirely to the absolutely unquestionable dogmas of the White Liberals.
And we know how their kind reward the other Christian churches who have given in...they become the neutered chaplains of their contemptuous masters. After all, when your adversary gives in, what could he possible ever had to teach you?

The man is shockingly confusing. And confusing is the last thing a Bishop of Rome is supposed to be.

PS. A very kind, extremely circumspect and highly orthodox priest, an Anglican recently reconciled to Rome, points out that Francis is talking through his hat...without saying so, of course. That would be disrespectful.

The speech of Pope Francis which I began by quoting, with its initial cautions about closing oneself within the written word and the law, ended with quotations from Canon Law about the Pope's own supreme authority. But canons 749, 331, 332, 333, and 334, all of which he referenced, are, surely, the written word? And, moreover, are they not all written in ... um ... a law book?

A commentor, a layman unconstrained by the Reverend Father's ecclesiastical constraints, opines:

...I daresay the most charitable thing we can say of Pope Francis is he's a man of crude expression who nearly always fails to communicate properly.*..If one takes into consideration his ecclesiastical promotions, demotions, and assorted acts and allowances, I think it's far more likely he is confused and contradictory in his opinions, at minimum.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

knowing that I did my own share of damage back in the OP days, but the official "hymn" chosen by the Dominican Order to celebrate its upcoming 800th year...well, I couldn't even get past the one minute mark. It takes one of the Order's mottos, "Laudare benedicere praedicare", "To praise, to bless, to preach" and turns it into a derivative Third-World idea of girly EuroPop. Embarrassingly awful.

The seal inverted, the universal sign of distress.

Reminds me of the nunny sentimentality of the 1960's hit Dominique nique nique by "Sister Smile, the Singing Nun" (whose real life was no smile.) Reminds me, too, of Cardinal Newman's reason for not joining the Dominicans, who, on paper, sounded like they fit his project: "A great idea, extinct."

In the late 18th century, Brits continued to view Brits-in-the-American-Colonies as Brits, but they were becoming something else. Another people. The Revolution cinched that. In the mid-20th century and well into the 21st, White Americans continued to view Blacks*-in-America as Americans, but they were becoming something else. Another people. What will cinch that?

(*And not only Blacks. I find it hard to believe that Latinos are American, either.)

Had my pal Bill over last night and since he is a fan of classic westerns, we watched Shane (1953), listed as one of the greatest. Sorry. I beg to differ. Waaaaaay too long and needed lots of cutting. The boring moral angst of the reformed gunslinger, in face of the obvious, left me angry more at him than at the so-called bad guys. Who, I must say, were given a voice in the script, which explained the struggle from their point of view. Rare. And the whiny wife who, in typical fashion, kept trying to castrate her husband while she made eyes at the bad boy. Well, the whole thing felt like a dishonest Democrat anti-gun project.

Well, I have more to wring my hands over, but you don't want to hear about it either.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

I suggest that all those lifers be let go and they be delivered to the gates of Vatican City so that he can respond to them with "another type of social policy, economic policy and policy of social inclusion."

If there's room, after we deliver all those African and Muslim "migrants" he's so fond of.

Francis is the Obama of Catholicism. Despite all the evidence of history, as well as the doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin, Francis the (Endlessly) Talking Pope seems to think that there is a solution to everything, and that the government is the usual instrument. Jaw-droppingly unglued.

He is the king of confusion. I sometimes wonder if it's his narcissism or if it's a thought-disorder. In the above rambling speech, which I have read in the original Italian on the Vatican website, he, the head of the Catholic Church, says "corruption is a greater evil than sin." WFT is that supposed to mean?

OBTW, Christianity's man problem only gets worse. While feministas scream that it's the last bastion of patriarchy, a lot of men on the ground are voting with their feet and walking out of Mr Rogers religion. This article points out the saccharine music, childish preaching, ugly buildings, a pussy Jesus and girl-driven agenda.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

ExCathedra has finally given up on a life-long belief --assumption, really, just taken for granted-- that the racial divide in the US is a problem that can be solved. Somehow, eventually, if we just try harder. Or elect a Black POTUS. Twice. But, alas, no. IMNSHO, the races are implacable enemies and the problem is insoluble. Nothing will ever be enough.

In St Louis

Making believe that Blacks and Whites belong together in a single country, much less share a common national identity, now makes less sense to me than imagining you could combine Germany and Poland and make it work. Or uniting China and Japan. After 50 obsessive years of endless cost in treasure and law and culture change, and blood*, things are definitely not better between us. And nothing "we" do will improve it.

As I have crudely mentioned on more than one occasion, Blacks are forever complaining that Whitey is "keeping them down", when the truth is that we are the only thing keeping them up. If Black America were a separate country, it would be a Third World African-style basket case. Zimbabwe. Liberia. Haiti. Detroit. Baltimore. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Even CoastalElite mouthpiece The Atlantic says so... (although they assume, I'm sure, that this is Whites' fault. I await Ta-Nehisi Coates' louder cries for "reparation.")

*It's Black blood that gets the headlines, a la Ferguson, but when Blacks kill Blacks --93% of Black homicide deaths are at the hands of other Blacks-- it's Business As Usual or, more importantly, when Blacks kill Whites --in a hugely disproportionate way-- it's Crickets Chirping.

if a biological male claims he’s a woman and is forbidden to use the ladies’ bathroom at Starbucks to piss away his Pumpkin Spice Latte, it is a human-rights issue rather than a case of an annoying drama queen with nothing better to do.

And on the tyranny of what he well calls "microscopic* minorities":

Until convinced otherwise, I will continue to believe that “rights” can only be taken and never given. I will also continue to suspect that the struggle over these illusory and unquantifiable “rights” has nothing to do with freedom and is instead a battle over power. I should be used to it by now, but it continues to depress me when I observe the formerly “oppressed” morphing into despots the moment they get their claws on the whip handle.

*(Transgenders are about 3/1000 percent of the population. 003%.)

From my years working in gay/lesbian environments --including dealing with lesbian nuns while I was a cleric-- I hold the impression that the most grimly Stalinist types are almost always the dykes.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Don't ask me how, but at dinner tonight with Mr B, the subject of learning to read a foreign language with a different alphabet came up. Though he speaks Spanish and Italian, both of these use the Latin alphabet and he thought it would be very difficult to add both foreign tongue and strange script. I opined that it was not that hard, really.

And for some reason, went and got my old Greek New Testament to show him.

The Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 6

The whole New Testament is in Greek, with exception of a few places

where Jesus is quoted directly in Aramaic,

his native tongue.

I've always loved and been fascinated by languages. I've read Latin well, done ok with New Testament Greek, and spoken and written French, Italian, Spanish and even German for a while. A smattering of Hebrew. Had a brief go at easy but oddly boring Esperanto and was defeated by Irish, whose spelling makes English seem as rational as Spanish spelling (which is very rational). For example, the Irish word for "almighty", uilechumhachtaigh, is pronounced illi-hoo-atah. You get my point. Even though Hebrew is in a completely different alphabet, written right to left, and uses little marks in place of vowels, I found it a more accessible tongue than the language of my Hibernian ancestors. It's written as pronounced. Fifty years after the founding of modern Israel, Israelis all speak Hebrew. Ireland has been independent since the early 20th century and no more than 10% speak Irish, despite 12 years of compulsory teaching in schools. But, Jews are smarter than Gaels, and Hebrew is easier than Irish. So there we are.

Though I neither speak nor understand any other foreign lingo, I can recognize the script of very many and can tell from listening whether someone is speaking Korean, Mandarin or Japanese.

When I was a seminarian in Rome, in some of my free time I used to work my way through the various New Testament texts. I later referred to this volume when I was a pastor and a preacher. Not for the congregation, who cared very little about the original languages, but for myself. It's one thing to read the Bible in translation and another one to know that you are reading the very words of the original, it its original 2000 years-ago tongue. It's always struck me that Koine Greek had a single verb for "to be crucified together with"....sunstaurosqunai.

Friday, October 17, 2014

"If I must speak the truth, I feel disposed to shun every conference of Bishops, because I never saw a synod brought to a happy outcome, and remedying, and not rather aggravating, existing evils. For rivalry and ambition are stronger than reason - do not think me extravagant for saying so - and a mediator is more likely to incur some imputation himself than to clear up the imputations which others lie under."

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Once you become aware of the PC equalist RaceAndGender orthodoxy, you see it pervading everything. Numinous and Necessary Negroes, Phallic Females wall to wall in the Potemkin village of Progress. Teaching us over and over the dominance and rule by Blacks and Women are the proper order of nature.

Makes it hard to find movies or series to watch. And makes almost every commercial eye-rollingly offensive.

The unholy trinity of inescapeable conditions of human life that John Kekes frequently mentions.

I thought of them while listening by audiobook to Thomas Madden's 2012 Venice: A New History
, a really fine piece of accessible but thorough historiography. I take it inductively, as a portal through which to re-read the history of the eastern Mediterranean world. Venice, which I've had the good fortune to visit twice, turns out to have been a quite extraordinary city-state, a maritime and mercantile enclave, far more creative and consequential than I had imagined. It was the only republic in Europe for 1000 years.

But over and over, events spiral out of control --that seems to be their nature-- and disaster ensues. Since Venice started to come into existence in the 5th century, precisely to escape the dangers and turmoil of the dissolving Western Roman Empire, it had a long time to experience the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as well as the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

What sparks this post is Thessalonika, the Greek city to which St Paul wrote two of his epistles.
We are in the 15th century in the book. Shortly before the fall of Byzantium in 1453 the Emperor desperately tried to save Thessalonika from the Turks by selling it to Venice. The Venetians took over this Greek city with quite a lot of noble attitudes: they brought security, lots of food, and they respected the independence of the Orthodox Church and the institutions and civil rights of the town.

But the Greeks found the Italians too cocky and they didn't like the food. They complained bitterly and regularly to Venice, which responded with extraordinary indulgence. Nevertheless, the upshot was that when the Turks finally attacked the town, the Greeks not only refused to help defend it but betrayed it to the Muslims. For which the Sultan rewarded them by slaughtering and enslaving them. The Genoese, long rivals of Venice, helped the Muslims take down their Christian brethren. A few years later, Mehmet the Conqueror, head of The Religion of Peace, finally captured Constantinople, with the usual slaughter and rape and enslavement and destruction, and final remnant of ancient Rome was gone, a thousand years after Alaric sacked the original city on the Tiber.

Empires come and go. Such seems to be the iron law of history. And the meanest flaws in the human soul seem to flourish precisely when their opposite virtues are most needed.

Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Every progressive project was undertaken in opposition to the then-current dominant belief and practice. Racial and sexual politics has been the forum. Conservatives took up a defense of their position and fought out the issue in the public forum.

And always lost.*

But notice. Once the Progressive goal du jour is achieved, there can be no more discussion.

The new dispensation is a sacred icon, untouchable and beyond question. Try having a public discussion now where you reject same-sex marriage. You are simply a H8er and have no right to an opinion.

Much less wondering out loud about racial or gender equality. Or questioning the wisdom of mixed race marriage, etc. Ostracism, loss of income, even physical attack will follow.

As the Ebonics say, "Don't even try it."

Under the previous regime, you could fight to have your idea accepted.
Once the Progressives win, you may not beg to differ.

---

*The defeat of the feminist Equal Rights amendment is an exception. But that was only one battle in a war that feminists have entirely won.

Sunday, October 05, 2014

I remain of the opinion that The West is Going To Hell In A Handbasket, there are consolations to distract one from The Decline And Fall.

For example.

Of all the handsome fellas whose pix I have posted over the last several years on this otherwise deeply intellectual and spiritual blog...I have to say that, all things being equal, this guy is probably the best of the lot.

Were I to have a shot at re-incarnation, I might very well request this model.

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Everything where it should be, in proper amounts. Wonderful thing, mesomorphs.

23 years ago today, I arrived in SF from Toronto after 2700 mile truck trek.

City much improved since then.,, We now have inlaid rainbow crosswalks in the Castro!

and a Rainbow Walk of Fame, including a plaque for Yukio Mishima, who, were he alive, would be reviled by the LGBTQ regime as a self-loathing, patriarchy-loving, fascist. And the contempt would be mutual.

Funny what being dead and Asian can get you.

Slept only 2 hours last nite; awake til almost 5. No idea why. So I took a nap mid afternoon and now feel drugged and disoriented. Regular sleep is a blessing you most recognize when you don't have it.

Started arrangements to have my mom's car transported out here. A cut-throat business. Found an agent/company whose BBB and Yelp ratings are extraordinarily good. Fingers crossed. Losing my car back in 2010 was a blow. The prospect of having one back now feels sorta self-indulgent.

Toward Our Future

What the sons of Europa need is a new religion: one that is as tribal, portable and survivalist as Judaism, as masculine, terrestrial and tough as Islam and as intellectually and aesthetically creative as Christianity...with a dose of the unflinching realism of the ancestral ways of the Greeks and Romans, Germans and Celts and Slavs..And for the larger Indo-European frame, something of the Indian capacity to combine an ultimate and philosophical realization of The One with a robustly mytho-poetic religion on-the-ground. Oh, and some of the psychological acumen of Buddhism.

Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo

In A Nutshell

Liberalism's Basic Flaw

Liberals believe that the chief role of the State is to force everyone to be equal, (ie, take vengeance on the successful). So when they are confronted with any group that they deem less well off than themselves, they are morally disarmed, completely and utterly. Any group that can achieve Victim Status is on their way to power and the (White) liberal's onlyjob is to give them what they want, no matter how much that damages him. And nothing may ever be expected, much less demanded, of them in return. It's a recipe for suicide: no other outcome is possible.

Demography as Destiny

"...then the end of the Roman republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing." Theodore Roosevelt, 1911

Multiculti Suicide

"Modern liberal societies in Europe and North America* celebrate their own pluralism and multiculturalism, arguing in effect that their identity is to have no identity."

Francis Fukuyama

Identity & Migration (2007)

*(White societies, that is.)

Equality's Dark Side (Oops, is that raciss?)

"“The sole condition which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community, is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced ... to a single principle.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835